Marshall comes up bigtime for Cougars

MICHAEL MURPHY, Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

Published
5:30 am CST, Tuesday, November 1, 2005

Vincent Marshall admits that he thinks about it every day. Not almost every day. Every day he wonders what might have been had he not shrugged off schools like Miami and LSU and enrolled at the University of Houston.

Three years ago, Marshall was a highly sought-after recruit out of tiny Ennis, and programs such as Miami (Fla.), LSU, Northwestern and others were calling his house and knocking on his door.

Just one problem, though. They all wanted Marshall for his feet, not his hands.

Those would be the feet he used to burn up the track at Ennis, not the hands he used to catch footballs for the Class 4A Lions. And as much as Marshall liked track, he loved football and wanted to play there in college, despite being so small — 5-7, 130 pounds — that calling him tiny would be an exaggeration.

But no big-time school was interested in Marshall's football skills.

"Sam Houston State offered me a scholarship," Marshall said. "But I really didn't want to go there. My brother (Chris) played two years there, but I wanted to go somewhere else."

Somewhere he could play football. Marshall kept hoping that someone would notice the 159 catches he had at Ennis, good for 3,171 yards and 41 touchdowns during a three-year varsity career that included state titles in 2000 and 2001.

"I never thought I'd play football again after my senior year in high school," Marshall said. "After we won the state championship, nobody ever mentioned anything about football, so I was kind of mad for a couple of months. But then I was like, 'OK, at least it (track) will pay for my school.' What else could I do?"

After accepting a track scholarship at UH, Marshall attempted to walk on in football, but former coach Dana Dimel put the diminutive Marshall at fullback on the scout team. That was enough to finally convince Marshall that nobody was going to take his quest seriously.

But in December 2002, Dimel got the ax and Art Briles came on board. Briles, who was a recruiter while on the staff at Texas Tech and coach at Stephenville before that, remembered Marshall from Ennis. So he hit the recruiting trail again. Only this time, Briles was prowling the halls at UH.

"I knew what an outstanding player he was there, and I knew how well he would fit our system," Briles said. "We like guys who can make plays, and he's a playmaker. I had to track him down and get him on (a football scholarship)."

Good thing because after his experience with Dimel, Marshall wasn't about to go asking for another tryout.

"I was glad he (Briles) came in, but I didn't know if he remembered me," Marshall said. "We had played them in high school, so I was really hoping that he remembered me because I really wanted to play so bad. I kept thinking about going up to his office, but I didn't want it to look like I was begging. I didn't know if he thought I was good enough."

He certainly has proved to be good enough. Marshall has gone from unwanted track athlete to one of the greatest receivers in school history.

Entering Saturday's Conference USA game at Central Florida, Marshall, who has one year of eligibility remaining, is fourth on UH's all-time receptions list with 162, 45 behind Jason Phillips, now an assistant coach under Briles. And Marshall's 2,363 receiving yards puts him fifth on the all-time yards list.

"He's extremely quick, he's fast and he's very explosive, which is what everybody knows about Vincent," Phillips said. "But the one thing that stands out to me is his intelligence. He's very instinctive. To play this game well, you have to have some type of football intelligence, and he possesses that."

Marshall, now 5-9, 165, can do so much more than catch the ball, which he proved in last week's victory at Mississippi State. He broke off a 56-yard punt return that helped the Cougars to a 28-16 victory and earned Marshall the Conference USA special teams player of the week award.

"We expect big things every time he touches the ball," said Briles with a shrug. "No, we're past hoping. We expect. He's delivered so much that we have come to expect those kinds of things from him. He's proven his ability."

And he intends to keep proving it, hoping to get a look from NFL scouts.

"If anything, if I get invited to the combine I can give them a fast 40," said Marshall, who won the triple jump at last year's C-USA indoor meet. "I ran a 4.38 as a senior in high school, and I'm faster now. If nothing else, I could be a return specialist. Anything just to be able to play a little longer."